Just two weekends remain in Arkansas baseball's regular season before the postseason begins, with the SEC Tournament slated to start on May 20 and the NCAA Tournament after that.
The Razorbacks, ranked No. 7 in the nation, are coming off a three-game sweep of No. 1 Texas last weekend and travel to Baton Rouge to play the No. 3 LSU Tigers this weekend, with a home series against Tennessee the weekend after that to cap off the regular season.
With the postseason so close, a few outlets are releasing weekly projections about what teams the Diamond Hogs will face in the regional, and if they advance past that, who they might play in the Super Regional round.
Arkansas hasn't advanced out of its own regional in the last two seasons, as TCU advanced past Arkansas in 2023, and Kansas State did the same in 2024. The year prior, the Razorbacks went on the road for the entire postseason and ended their season with a semifinal appearance in the College World Series.
HawgBeat looks at some postseason projections, who the Hogs might play, and some potential storylines as they look to dogpile in Omaha at the end of the season...
D1 Baseball
D1Baseball's projection, released on Tuesday, shows Arkansas as the No. 2 overall seed and paired with the UCLA Bruins in the Super Regionals. There aren't any major storylines that pop out about that, but there are some interesting connections in the Fayetteville Regional.
The first that comes to mind is four-seed Missouri State. The Bears have already claimed one win in Baum-Walker Stadium this season, as the Razorbacks blew a five-run lead in the ninth inning and lost to Missouri State, 14-13, in extra innings on March 25.
A trip to Springfield to play Missouri State again was canceled last Tuesday due to weather in the area, which Arkansas head coach Dave Van Horn said turned out to be a good thing.
"That didn’t hurt us at all because we got to practice as a full team," Van Horn said on May 1."I mean, we stretched as a full team — pitchers, position players, together with our strength coach, the coaches all around. We did it in the indoor because it was raining...the team got to be a team because a lot of times you’re separated and then you’re just playing all these games."
Dallas Baptist, as the two-seed, would bring the Patriots back to Fayetteville for the first time since 2018. Arkansas defeated DBU 4-3 to advance to the Super Regionals, and that game featured a home run robbery by Heston Kjerstad in the sixth inning.
Baseball America
Baseball America's projection has some big possible storylines for the Razorbacks. Perhaps the most glaring is the possible Super Regional matchup with Oregon State, which defeated Arkansas in the 2018 College World Series to claim the title.
If Oregon State doesn't advance past its own regional, there's a chance Kansas State advances and comes to Fayetteville for the Super Regional. K-State is the team that advanced to the Super Regional out of Fayetteville last year, and the Hogs lost to the Wildcats 3-2 in Arlington early on this season.
Interestingly, all three of these projections include San Diego. On the off chance the Toreros advance through the Corvallis regional and come to Fayetteville, it would be the first time since 2018 the two have matched up.
It's been a couple of years, but it's also worth noting that Kansas, listed as the three-seed in this projection, is where former Razorback Tavian Josenberger played before he spent a year with the Razorbacks in 2023.
On3 Sports
This projection seems to be a nice setup for Arkansas to make its return to Omaha, as the Hogs are paired with 2-seed Louisville, 3-seed Texas-Rio Grande Valley and Holy Cross in the Fayetteville Regional. Like Baseball America's projection, Arkansas would be paired with Oregon State should the two advance to the Super Regional round.
In addition to Oregon State, the Corvallis Regional also features 2-seed Arizona, 3-seed Kentucky and 4-seed San Diego. This projection is the only one that features a fellow SEC team connected to Arkansas before Omaha, and Kentucky has recent experience in advancing to the College World Series as the Wildcats got all the way to the semifinal round last year.
Arizona is an interesting matchup for the Razorbacks in this projection. The two haven't played since 2018, when the Hogs won 1-0 in San Diego. The only run scored in that game was a solo home run by Kjerstad.
If you look all the way back to 2004, Dave Van Horn's second season at Arkansas and his first trip to Omaha with the Razorbacks, it was Arizona that knocked the Hogs out of the College World Series.
